John T. Edge

29th annual Key West Literary Seminar

January 6 - 16, 2011

John T. Edge holds a master’s degree in Southern Studies from the University of Mississippi and is director of the Southern Foodways Alliance, an institute of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi, where he documents and celebrates the diverse food cultures of the American South. He writes the monthly “United Tastes” series for The New York Times, is a contributing editor at Garden & Gun, a longtime columnist for the Oxford American, and a former contributing editor at Gourmet. His work for Saveur and other magazines has been featured in six editions of the Best Food Writing anthology and he has been nominated for the James Beard Foundation’s M.F.K. Fisher Distinguished Writing Award. In 2009, Edge was inducted into Beard’s Who’s Who of Food & Beverage in America.

Edge’s four-book series on iconic American eats includes Fried Chicken: An American Story; Apple Pie: An American Story; Hamburgers & Fries: An American Story; and Donuts: An American Passion. Other books include the James Beard Award-nominated cookbook, A Gracious Plenty: Recipes and Recollections from the American South. Edge is also the author of Southern Belly: The Ultimate Food Lover’s Companion to the South, and is the editor of the foodways volume of the New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture. He is also general editor of the book series Cornbread Nation: The Best of Southern Food Writing. He has served as culinary curator for the weekend edition of NPR’s All Things Considered, and he has been featured on dozens of television shows, from CBS Sunday Morning to Iron Chef.

Edge lives in Oxford, Mississippi, with his son, Jess, and his wife, Blair Hobbs, a teacher and painter. He is currently at work on Street Eats, forthcoming from Workman, which catalogues modern American street and truck food.